Luttrell Of Arran Part 115

"I guess your meaning--at least, I suspect I do. You intend that your wife should tell me that scandal about the secret marriage, that dark story of her departure from Arran, and her repentant return to it; but I know it all, every word of it, already."

"And from whom?"

"From herself--from her own lips; confirmed, if I wanted confirmation, by other testimony."

"I think she did well to tell you," said Cane, in a half uncertain tone.

"Of course she did right. It was for me to vindicate her, if she had been wronged, and I would have done so, too, if the law had not been before me. You know that the scoundrel is sentenced to the galleys?"

Cane did not know it, and heard the story with astonishment, and so much of what indicated curiosity, that Harry repeated all Kate had told him from the beginning to the end.

"Would you do me the great favour to repeat this to my wife?

She is sincerely attached to Miss Luttrell, and this narrative will give her unspeakable pleasure."

"Tell her, from me, that her affection is not misplaced--she deserves it all!" muttered Harry, as he laid his head moodily against the window, and stood lost in thought.

"Here comes the postman. I am expecting a letter from the captain of the Australian packet-s.h.i.+p, in answer to some inquiries I had made in Miss Luttrell's behalf."

The servant entered with a packet of letters as he spoke, from which Cane quickly selected one.

"This is what I looked for. Let us see what it says:

"'Dear Sir,--I find that I shall be able to place the p.o.o.p cabin at Miss L.'s disposal, as my owner's sister will not go out this spring. It is necessary she should come over here at once, if there be any trifling changes she would like made in its interior arrangement. The terms, I believe, are already well understood between us. By the Hamburg packet-s.h.i.+p _Drei Heilige_, we learn that the last outward-bound vessels have met rough weather, and a convict-s.h.i.+p, the _Blast_, was still more unfortunate. Cholera broke out on board, and carried off seventy-three of the prisoners in eleven days.'"

There was a postscript marked confidential, but Cane read it aloud:

"'Can you tell me if a certain Harry Luttrell, who has signed articles with me as second mate, is any relation of Miss L.'s? He has given me a deposit of twenty pounds, but my men think he is no seaman, nor has ever been at sea. Do you know anything of him, what?'"

"Yes!" said Harry, boldly. "Tell him you know him well; that he was with you when you read aloud that pa.s.sage in his letter; a.s.sure him--as you may with a safe conscience--that he is a good sailor, and add, on my part, that he has no right to make any other inquiries about him."

"And do you really intend to make this voyage?"

"Of course I do! I told you a while ago I could be as obstinate as my cousin. You'll see if I don't keep my word. Mind me, however; no word of this to Miss Luttrell. I charge you that!"

"And the property, Sir! What are your views respecting the estate?"

"I shall write to you. I'll think of it," said Harry, carelessly. After a few words more, they parted. Harry had some things to buy in the city, some small preparations for the long voyage before him; but, promising Cane to come back and take a family dinner with him, he went his way. For some hours he walked the streets half unconsciously, a vague impression over him that there was something he had to do, certain people to see, certain places to visit; but so engaged was he with the thought of Kate and her fortunes, his mind had no room for more. "She shall see," muttered he to himself, "that I am not to be shaken off.

My Luttrell obstinacy, if she will call it so, is as fixed as her own.

Country has no tie for _me_. Where she is, there shall be my country."

Some fears he had lest Cane should tell her of his determination to sail in the same s.h.i.+p with her. She was quite capable of outwitting him if she could only get a clue to this. Would Cane dare to disobey him?

Would he face the consequences of his betrayal? From these thoughts he wandered on to others--as to how Kate would behave when she found he had followed her. Would this proof of attachment move her? Would she resent it as a persecution? Hers was so strange a nature, anything might come of it. "The same pride that made her refuse me, may urge her to do more.

As she said so haughtily to me at Arran, 'The peasant remedy has failed to cure the Luttrell malady; another cure must be sought for!'"

Harry had scarcely knocked at Cane's door, when it was opened by Cane himself, who hurriedly said, "I have been waiting for you. Come in here;" and led him into his own room. "She's above stairs. She has just come," whispered he.

"Who?" asked Harry, eagerly. "Who?"

"Your cousin--Miss Luttrell. A letter from the surgeon of the convict-s.h.i.+p has conveyed news of old Malone's death, and she has come up to free herself from her arrangement with the captain. And----"

He stopped and hesitated with such evident confusion, that Harry said, "Go on, Sir; finish what you were about to say."

"It is her secret, not mine, Mr. Luttrell; and I know it only through my wife."

"I insist on hearing it. I am her nearest of kin, and I have a right to know whatever concerns her."

"I have already told you what I promised to keep secret. I was pledged not to say she was here. I came down to make some excuse for not receiving you to-day at dinner--some pretext of my wife's illness. I beg, I entreat you will not ask me for more."

"I insist upon all you know," was Harry's stern reply.

"How do I even know it," cried Cane, in despair, "from a few incoherent words my wife whispered in my ear as she pa.s.sed me? Were I to tell, it may be only to mislead you."

"Tell me, whatever may come of it."

Cane took a turn or two up and down the room, and at last, coming in front of Luttrell, said: "She is about to take back her old name, and with it the humble fortune that belonged to it. She says you and yours have suffered enough from the unhappy tie that bound you to her family.

She is resolved you shall never see, never hear of her again. She took her last look at Arran last night. To-morrow she declares she will go away from this, where none shall trace her. There's her secret! I charge you not to betray how you came by it."

"Let me see her; let me speak with her."

"How can I? I have promised already that you should not hear she is here."

"Send for your wife, and let me speak to her. I must--I will speak to her.".

"Go into that room for a moment, then, and I will advise with my wife what is to be done."

Harry pa.s.sed into the room and sat down. He heard Cane's bell ring, and soon afterwards could mark the tread of a foot on the stairs, and then the sound of voices talking eagerly in the adjoining room. His impatience nearly maddened him; his heart beat so that he felt as if his chest could not contain it; the vessels of his neck, too, throbbed powerfully. He opened the window for air, and then, as though the s.p.a.ce was too confined, flung wide a door at the side of the room. As he did this, he saw that it led to the stairs. Quicker than all thought his impulse urged him. He dashed up and entered the drawing-room, where Kate sat alone, and with her head buried between her hands.

She looked up, startled by his sudden entrance, and then, resuming her former att.i.tude, said, in a low, m.u.f.fled voice, "You have heard what has befallen me. I am not fated to acquit the debt I owed."

Harry sat down beside her in silence, and she went on: "I was hoping that this pain might have been spared us--I mean, this meeting--it is only more sorrow. However, as we are once more together, let me thank you. I know all that you intended, all that you meant by me. I know that you would have come with me, too. I know all! Now, Harry," said she, in a more resolute voice, "listen to me calmly. What I say to you is no caprice, no pa.s.sing thought, but the long-earned conviction of much reflection. From _my_ people came every misfortune that has crushed yours. Your father's long life of suffering--told in his own words--his diaries--revealed in the letters from his friends--I have read them over and over--was caused by this fatal connexion. Are these things to be forgotten? or are you cruel enough to ask me to repeat the experiment that broke your mother's heart, and left your father friendless and forsaken? Where is your pride, Sir? And if _you_ have none, where would be mine, if I were to listen to you?"

"There comes the truth!" cried he, wildly. "It is your pride that rejects me. You, who have lived in great houses, and mixed with great people, cannot see in me anything but the sailor."

"Oh no, no, no!" cried she, bitterly.

"I know it--I feel it, Kate," continued he. "I feel ashamed when my coa.r.s.e hand touches your taper fingers. I shrink back with misgiving at any little familiarity that seems so inconsistent between us. Even my love for you--and G.o.d knows how I love you!--cannot make me think myself your equal."

"Oh, Harry, do not say such things as these; do not--do not!"

"I say it--I swear it; the highest ambition of my heart would be to think I could deserve you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: n033]

She hid her face between her hands, and he went on, madly, wildly, incoherently; now telling her what her love might make him--now darkly hinting at the despair rejection might drive him to. He contrasted all the qualities of _her_ gifted nature, so sure to attract friends.h.i.+p and interest, with the ruggedness of his character, as certain to render him friendless; and, on his knees at her feet, he implored her, if any grat.i.tude for all his father's love could move her, to take pity on and hear him.

There was a step on the stair as Harry seized her hand and said, "Let this be mine, Kate; give it to me, and make me happier than all I ever dreamed of. One word--one word, dearest." And he drew her face towards him and kissed her.

"The Luttrell spirit is low enough, I take it, now," said she, blus.h.i.+ng.

"If their pride can survive this, no peasant blood can be their remedy."